CHARLESTOWN, Ind. (WDRB) -- Charlestown leaders promise their brown tap water will go away. And it may take a year.
Monday night, they explained the plan to treat Charlestown's water for chronic but non-toxic discoloration, after residents have complained for years.
Starting Feb. 6, the city will add to its water a chemical to dissolve manganese from its water pipes.
The hope is to end frustration with every flush or turn on at the tap.
Bill King, who lives on Marcy Road in Charlestown, takes a gamble on what color the water will be every time he turns on the kitchen tap.
He's not alone -- some 2,600 customers of Charlestown's city-owned water system have been dealing with the same issue.
King says the water sometimes is the color of his coffee.
"That's the color of it when it's dirty, or black. Of course today, it's clean today. But two hours from now it might be like that again," King said.
"And your toilet bowl, when you lift it up, it is just solid black in there."
The city says the discolored water is safe to drink, but many residents do as Bill King does -- they buy bottled water as a substitute.
Residents have complained about the brown water for years. City officials have attributed the problem to aging water lines under the town of 7,500 and decided it was too expensive to replace all the lines -- so they looked for alternatives. One, a proprietary, chlorinated chemical branded as Clearitas, became the preferred solution in studies going back to last summer.
A Clearitas executive described it as "highly ionized chorine," but he refused to reveal other chemicals in its makeup, saying the formula is a trade secret.
Clearitas will be added to the city's water supply starting Monday, Feb. 6. The cost: about $100,000.
The mayor and water system consultants say treatment should start to break up the manganese from the water pipes within a year -- but the treatments likely will be necessary indefinitely.
That should mean no more sand or sediment buildups and eventually, no more brown water.
Residents concerned about the cost of clearing up the water spoke at a town hall meeting on Jan. 30.
"Now I am worried how high the water rate is going to go," said Nathan Logsdon.
"One of the things that does excite me about this is that we can accomplish this without rate increases,"said Mayor Bob Hall, (R).
Hall says residents pepper him with questions and complaints about the discolored water daily, even on trips to the grocery store.
Once the water is treated, "I should be able to go to the Jay-C [supermarket] without any bother," Hall said.
Hall says the Clearitas chemical has no smell and should not harm septic tanks or hot water heaters.
The city points to a similar-sized water system in Patriot, Ind., which also has used the chemical to eliminate manganese buildup in its water lines.
Charlestown has printed a guide to the process, which you can read here.
Copyright 2012 WDRB News. All rights reserved.
Bill King
A beaker containing Clearitas
